that Sarah Klem

As you may or may not know, I am a life-long Eagles' fan. Okay, maybe not life-long, there was period when I thought Joe Montana was just the dreamiest. But I was (almost) a teenager. You can't tell a preteen anything. Anyway, I came around. After he left for Kansas City (and Steve Young retired).

The point is, for the majority of my life, I've been an Eagles fan.

But, the past 10 years or so, I have also been a huge Peyton Manning fan. It is because of these two (sometimes conflicting) loves that I found myself at the Broncos-Eagles game.

For those of you that don't follow football, the game was in Denver, which left me with a dilemma. Do I wear my Eagles' colors and risk ridicule or do I wear my Manning jersey and risk shame in my heart (and ridicule on Facebook).

I figured instinct would take over and I would end up cheering for the Eagles, so I packed my cutest Eagles t-shirt. Plus my t-shirt looks cuter with boots than my jersey.

In a show of solidarity, my sister (a converted Broncos fan) also wore green and warned me it wasn't going to be pretty sitting in the south end zone, among the most notorious Broncos fans.

So, yes, I was mentally prepared to be heckled and boo'd and even mercilessly teased every time the Broncos scored (though, I had no idea they would score that many times). I wasn't, however, ready to have things thrown at me.

Bits of soft pretzel to be exact.

My sister spotted the perpetrators and motioned for them to come down and face her like a man (you know the motion - arms up in the air, face pursed to say "you don't want to step to this") while I grabbed my phone to handle this like a grown-up (I was going to text "Respect" to the stadium and have them kicked out. What? I'm a big fan of snitching), when two, big (size-wise, I have no idea about their adoration level) Broncos fans leaned forward and said, "Who's throwing shit at you."

My sister pointed out the offenders and the two guys used just their eyes to say they meant business. They then turned back to us and said they wouldn't be bothering us again.

And sure enough, they didn't.

Fast forward to the fourth quarter and an Eagles fan sitting near us, but not with us, was noticeably drunk and rowdy and as he slurred on and on about how it didn't really matter because he had Peyton Manning on his fantasy team, I closed my eyes and pleaded with the universe to not let this guy throw up on the super cute couple of Broncos fans in front of him.

Because if he did, that is the story that would be all over SportsCenter: Another Philadelphia fan behaving badly.

Not the dozens (hundreds even, maybe) of other Eagles fans that managed to attend the game without incident, nor the Broncos fans that were throwing things at me and my sister. Heck not even a story about the Broncos fans that came to our rescue.

And why? I was going to say it is because sportscasters are lazy, but I think it is because we are all a little lazy. It is easier for us to judge a person by the jersey they are wearing (or their skin color, or hair color, or religion or political affiliation) than to actually get to know them.

But if that weekend taught me anything it is that douchebags come in all jersey colors. And so do heroes.